Thermodynamics Research Center / ThermoML | Fluid Phase Equilibria

ABSTRACT

Solubility and tie-line data for the ternary systems of (water + formic acid + aliphatic alcohols) were mea-sured at T = 298.2 K and atmospheric pressure. The organic solvents were four primary normal alcohols, i.e.1-butanol, 1-pentanol, 1-hexanol, and 1-heptanol. The phase diagrams for all these ternary systems areof type-1. The immiscibility region was found to be larger for the ternary system containing 1-heptanol.The experimental LLE data were correlated using the NRTL and the UNIQUAC models, and the binaryinteraction parameters were calculated. The Othmer Tobias correlation equation was used to ascertainthe quality of the LLE data for each system. Distribution coefficients and separation factors were evalu-ated over the immiscibility regions. The experimental results indicate the advantage of 1-heptanol as thepreferred solvent for the recovery of formic acid from water.